Jumeirah delays opening of six hotels due to economy

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The Jumeirah Hotel Group has revealed that while it remains committed to its expansion into China, the opening of its first of six hotels in the country will be delayed.

It had been expected that Shanghai’s 338-room Jumeirah Han Tang Xintiandi Hotel would open later this year, but economic conditions have led to delays in its completion.

The luxury hotelier, which counts Dubai’s iconic Burj Al Arab hotel among the properties it manages, has said that it now expects to open the Shanghai hotel in May of 2010, still in time for the city’s World Expo.

Currently, Jumeirah manages 11 hotels around the world, including eight that are located in Dubai, two in London – the Carlton Tower and Lowndes Hotel and New York’s Essex House.

Fourteen more hotels are under construction, including resort properties in the Maldives and in Phuket, Thailand. The group is targeting 60 additional hotels to be under its management by 2012.

Gerald Lawless, the group’s executive chairman, noted a 20 per cent decline in room revenue for the first quarter of this year – in its home market – although the beach hotels in Dubai were said to be performing well.

“Our 96.5 percent occupancy rate in April was phenomenal in the current situation,” Lawless said, adding: “We are in the luxury segment where we are not expected to discount, but we have to be flexible, offer best available rates and work with Internet sites such as Expedia.”

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